


Superstitions and Curses

by bucciaratissun



Series: Monster husbands [9]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Dubious Consent, F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Mummy AU, Obsession, Yandere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:55:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28441260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bucciaratissun/pseuds/bucciaratissun
Summary: It wasn’t your first expedition, but pretty much the first time when you had helped to bring an ancient being back from the dead.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Reader
Series: Monster husbands [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2071155
Comments: 3
Kudos: 100





	1. Chapter 1

“Please, let me in.”

You clenched the amulet in your hands, nervously staring at the door of a hotel room and hoping he wouldn’t enter. Despite the fact that you were an archeologist, a woman who believed in nothing but science, you were ready to pray to all the gods if it would help to keep this creature away.

“I mean no harm to you.” His husky, dangerously low voice made you lick your lips as you thought of all the things he whispered in your ear the other night. “Didn’t you like the way I treat you, love?”

“It was a spell you put on me!” You furrowed your brows, making a step away from the door and bumping into a nightstand with a loud thud - the bottle of water in top of it fell down to the floor.

“A spell?” The man behind the door chuckled, and you could hear him breathing out loudly as he peered through the crack in the door, his hands pressed against the dark wood. “You know I haven’t done anything of this kind. What you felt was the chemistry between us, don’t deny it.”

It was true. That night when all you wanted was to forget the events of the last couple of days, forget all about the whole reason why you came to this ancient country, you rushed to a bar to get drunk like a fish, hoping the next morning once you’d wake up, it would all be a bad dream and nothing more. That’s where you met him, the man who you had seen laying in his grave just a couple of hours before. Of course, you didn’t know it was him - he looked like any other man, enough flesh on his bones not to cause any suspicion.

Oh, but it was him. He had followed you in that bar, pretending to be a stranger eager to know you; fooling you, he soon slipped into your room where he made love to you, completely drunk and fallen under his charms. How stupid you were, trusting a complete stranger after what had happened that day.

It was several hours after when you woke up in the night, and the moonlight coming from the window lit the room a little: as you stared at the man sleeping soundly next to you, you saw the ancient symbols on his chest.

The next minute you were out of your room, hoping he wouldn’t wake up in the next hour. It would give you enough time to reach the railway station.

Why was he following you? You could understand his reasons since you had pretty much broken his tomb and opened his grave, but why on Earth did he sleep with you? Why didn’t he kill you? Was it some kind of a ritual? Despite the fact that you were specializing on local customs and traditions, you have never heard of anything of that kind.

“You can’t get rid of me.” He murmured behind the door, and you sensed something wicked, resentful in his voice.

“Why can’t I? What do you want from me?” You asked on the verge of tears, your arms trembling - you very much doubted the amulet you were holding was of any use to you.

“Shhhh.” He cooed softly, feeling you fear and somewhat content with it. “I promise I won’t hurt you. Let me in, love. Let me in.”

For a couple of seconds you froze, listening to the man breathing softly behind the door. Strangely, you could almost hear his heart beating in his chest as if he really were human, not a rotten corpse you saw in the coffin a couple of days ago. The night you spent together you felt like he was the most tender and affectionate man you had ever met. Why did he do it? What was his purpose? Why were you opening the door for him when he ordered you to do it with that hypnotic voice of his?

You realized he had entered your room once he touched your cheek with his hand, rough fingers brushing against your wet skin. Oh, apparently, you were crying.

“I know it is beyond your comprehension, but please trust me, My Immortal Beloved.” He made a step forward as you shriveled and slinked back, staring at his perfectly blue eyes adorned with black kohl. “Do not be scared. Even though it seems horrifyingly wrong to you, things are exactly as they were meant to be.”

Despite the fact you had a thousand questions inside your head, the words were stuck in your throat. You couldn’t even scream, asking for help. Besides, it would be pretty worthless, wouldn’t it? No one could protect you from someone who rose from the dead.

“You were meant to open my tomb and set me free. You were meant to resurrect my body and let my soul return to it.”

When you reached the wall, your back pressed to it as if you wanted to slip through the stone, the man had inched closer to you and lowered his hand on your chest, the other one right in front of your face as he moved his hand, drawing a circle in the air with his palm. I see you. You are important to me, a sign of both trust and affection - you had seen it so many times on ancient drawings it was imprinted on your brain.

What? Why was he doing it? Why it was you who set him free? You were just one of a whole team of archaeologists and wage earners. You did nothing special, nothing that differentiated you from others - you weren’t the one who physically opened it nor did you read any ancient spells locals were so superstitious about. You were as much in shock as all others when the mummy had suddenly disappeared from the tomb.

At first, even though most of you were people of science, all of you thought of ancient curses and all those archaeologists who had supposedly died from it. Then, when you came to your senses, you thought of the thieves who might had taken the mummy. But then again, although it were the remains of someone very, very important, no treasures were buried with him - apparently, this person had done something terrible when he was alive, especially remembering the curses written on the walls. So why steal just the corpse, then? Without decent care, the bones would crack within minutes of carrying them. Why would thieves want the mummy?

“I want to come back home.” You whispered, shivering and averting your eyes.

“I will bring you whenever you want once you swear loyalty to me, love.”

You blinked as you stared at his tanned face, symbols painted with gold shining on his temples. It was getting more and more insane with every passing minute.

“Why would I swear loyalty to you?”

“Because I am your Sun, Moon and the Stars in between.”

The silence felt heavy, suffocating as you kept looking at the man, not knowing what to say. He was right - you didn’t understand a thing. You didn’t even know who he was and why you swearing loyalty to him seemed so important so this stranger. The only thing you knew for sure was that he was dangerous, far more dangerous than any other human being - you felt it in your bones.

“Before I d-do that, may I know your name?” You wanted to add something like “Your Majesty”, but you had no idea what kind of title the man once had - that is, if he had any at all.

He chuckled, “It would be hard for you to pronounce. But you can call me James, it is the closest you can get.”

A part of you was offended - for heaven’s sake, you were specializing on this exact area and surely knew how to pronounce ancient names - but the other part of you now wondered how come this being knew a real English name and could actually speak modern language. Surely, he was at least a thousand years old. How come?..

“Why were you buried so disrespectfully?” You started questioning him out loud, furrowing your brows. “This is not my first expedition, but I have never seen a tomb like yours before. No treasures, no name, nothing that could identify you at all.”

“The Witch-king, that’s how they called me.” His handsome face darkened, and the man took a step away, turning his back to you. “The one who had surpassed his high priest and could read the Book of the Dead. Once my chancellors learnt about me practicing the magic of the ancient, they made my priests spread the word to my people, and I have been overthrown. They have tortured me, blinded me, cut off my limbs, and then sealed me away in the tomb when I was still alive. Because of their fear of me and my powers, they condemned me to the worst of fates, and broke the line of kings.”

As he kept speaking, his dark long robe fell down to the floor, opening his half-naked tan body to you: you saw two deep scars on his shoulders that still looked raw, horrifying you - the man was telling you the truth. He had been dismembered.

“They have cursed me to stay neither truly dead nor alive till one day somebody would open my tomb and set me free. They have kept the location of my grave a secret, thinking no one would ever discover it in the sand, but they all were wrong. I will suffer no more in that place where not a single ray of light had shone over two thousands of years.”

Your head was spinning from all this, and you quietly slid to the floor, your hands in your hair as you tugged on the roots in frustration and fear. For the love of God, was it all true? Did you help resurrect the ancient being that could use some scary black magic and probably kill lots of innocent people? Did he want to drag you along with him once you swear loyalty to him? If you didn’t, would he actually murder you?

“But this is of no importance now.” The man turned back to you and, suddenly seeing you on the floor, hurried to gently pick you up and place you on a spacious bed, watching you with worry. “I am sorry for I have frightened you, love. I swear this was not my intention.”

You had troubles understanding what his intention was, but you kept silent, too scaried to say something to him. You had a dozen thoughts what a creature like him would want to do to people for all his suffering.

You should have left that damn tomb alone when your team found twice more death traps than in any other grave. You read the curses left on the walls, but they only fueled your interest. Of course, you had never been superstitious in your entire life, so you simply disregarded all the signs that now seemed so clear you were ready to slap yourself.

“Why am I important?” You asked in a shaky voice, your eyes trailing down his chest with ancient symbols tattooed on it. “Why spending a night with me? I am just a woman. I have opened the tomb, but I was one of many.”

“No, you are special. You won’t understand now, not yet, but think of it as your destiny. Your fate is bound to mine.”

As he inched closer to you, you finally realized you were almost in bed with a half-naked handsome man resurrected from the dead. Immediately crawling back, your stared at him wide-eyed. No, no, no, whoever he was and whatever he thought your fate was, you didn’t want him in your bed the second time! Well, almost. Maybe you wanted a little bit. Just a little.

“S-so, are you going to destroy the country and claim your kingdom again?”

Your words made him laugh as he bared his perfectly white teeth while touching the side of your face.

“Two thousand years were enough to change my priorities. Ruling the world of humans who know nothing of magic isn’t interesting to me anymore.”

“I see. That’s a relief.” You murmured, still very uncomfortable with him being so close to you. “Please, can I just leave? There are millions of women, I’m sure you’ll find someone more attractive to be your… your concubine.”

“Concubine? I did not have a concubine, and neither did my ancestors.” The man tilted his head to the side, looking at you surprised as you were ready to bite yourself for your own stupidity: of course, the rulers of these lands only started having concubines in the fourth dynasty and onwards, James was definitely either from the first or second one. “I can’t let you leave, love. You will have to come with me.”


	2. Chapter 2

Rubbing your eyes tiredly and squeezing them shut once you felt the sand getting in again, you grunted, a heavy clay tablet laying in front of you. As you wiped your eyes again with a sleeve of your light linen robe, you leaned over the ancient tablet and held your breath: it was a page from that very Book of the Dead James had been talking about.

Well, you definitely imagined it to look much more frightening, but it wasn’t like you were complaining. The spells and rituals written in it were the true treasure. If only you could publish this precious material!

“And give the ones knowing magic the deadliest weapon one could ever imagine? Love, you do have a peculiar sense of humor, I must admit.” The man - or rather the mythic ruler risen from the dead - said to you when you asked him.

Apparently, magic did truly exist, and there were people still practicing it. You were very sceptic when you heard him saying this, but when James literally brought you in the middle of a desert after you closed your eyes for a couple of seconds, you decided to shut up. Surely, an immortal being would know a little more about it than you.

“Oh, I think I found it!” You exclaimed, moving to the next clay tablet with excitement. “This has something about rising from the dead!”

“Uh-huh.” The man nodded without looking at you. He was busy searching for some old artifacts and ancient texts laying on the shelves cut down in a rock, something very important, as he said.

You, on the other hand, had the luxury of reading the Book of the Dead. Well, reading was a big word, really. Despite the fact that you knew this ancient language, translating the texts, even the ones where words were still visible, was an utter nightmare.

“Alright, it says something about love.” You hummed with content, happy you were able to read at least anything. “Love… love-making, actually. Why?”

“Consider this ritual an anchor sailors drop in the sea. It fully attaches a soul to a mortal body, finishes the whole process of coming back from the dead.” Sipping fresh green tea from a flask he bought in the city, James took one more clay tablet in his hands and brought it to light coming far from above - you were deeply underground, beneath the ancient sands of the desert, in what you supposed was something in between a temple and a library. “In short, you grant me a part of you, a mortal being, and I grant you a part of myself. Before you ask, no, you won’t become a mummy.”

“As if I was silly enough to ask.” You scratched your head, hating the sand getting absolutely everywhere and irritating your skin. “Alright, then you sleeping with me makes sense… Woah, wait a minute. Does it mean I literally had sex with a mummy?”

“Did it feel like having sex with a corpse?” The man smirked, turning back to you, and you quickly leaned over the tables to avoid looking at his smug expression.

Shit, you pretty much fucked a monster, and worse, you liked it.

“So, then it means the process is complete, correct? You have come back from the dead, and now you are immortal?”

“Kind of.”

Oh, you didn’t like the way he said it. You didn’t like it at all.

“What do you mean?” You stared at him, feeling uneasy.

The man in the dark robe exhaled loudly, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “My soul is immortal, but my body is not. I will need… resources to keep it in a decent condition.”

“Do you mean one day you will begin to rot?”

You felt nauseated when you imagined this handsome man with a body of Apollo slowly turning into a living corpse like those creatures in zombie movies. For heaven’s sake, was it going to be like that? And, more importantly, what did he need in order to “keep it in a decent condition”?

“It won’t come to this, do not worry. I only need a couple of humans a year.”

“Humans?!”

You said it way louder than you anticipated, and James gave you his full attention immediately, his cold blue eyes gazing upon you and making you shiver.

“Yes. Please, do not fret, I am not going to take the lives of those who deserve to live.” He cocked his head to the side, the strands of dark hair moving and opening the golden symbols on the sides of his face, a reminder of his divinity and terrifying power.

“Though I am not happy to satisfy my hunger with all those filthy murderers, bandits, and thieves.” As he paused, lowering his gaze, James then said with a frown, “Not that devouring the innocent would be pleasant to me either.”

“I see.”

You gulped down, goosebumps exploding on your skin after discovering the truth. Oh, you knew it wasn’t to be as smooth as he tried telling you, but you didn’t think it could turn this way. James was a monster who devoured humans to stay alive. Despite the fact that you had little pity for murderers and all those horrible people he was talking about, it didn’t mean they deserved to be eaten by the creature this man had become after his resurrection.

“So, you truly are a walking corpse, then.” You admitted bitterly, averting your eyes and thinking how it all would end up for you. Considering that he brought you here and allowed you to see the Book of the Dead, this man was probably going to drag you along with him further. You had no idea what he was planning to do to you next.

“Love, I am the most perfect form of life in this realm.”

Suddenly, you realized he was standing right in front of you, a precious clay tablet you were reading before in his hands now as he quickly dropped it on a stone altar to your left, breaking it into pieces. You shuddered, realizing he might simply kill you for speaking to him so disrespectfully. But then the man leaned closer to you, dropping to his knees and gently cupping your face with his fingers covered in dust and sand.

“I understand your fear, apple of my eye, but I have not returned to become a plague upon mankind. I won’t take more than I need.” While you looked at what before was a clay table, James furrowed his brows, fingers squeezing your chin until you directed your gaze at him. “And I won’t let you or any other human being read the book. It will do you no good.”

“Please, let me go.” You pleaded again like that night when he caught you. “I won’t tell anyone about you or the book. I just want to live a peaceful life, nothing else.”

He loosened his grip, finally releasing you with a loud sigh. Apparently, you were getting back to where you had started: it would take him more than one night to explain why you had to stay with him no matter what.

“Listen, love, our souls are connected now, and it wouldn’t be an issue for mages to it figure out. I promise I will keep you safe. More than that, if you stay with me, I will give you what no one else can. Do you want a kalasiris of blue gold? An army of servants? A palace?”

“No, God, no!” You shook your head furiously, still thinking of him determined to destroy the book - the only thing that could give you a hint how to bring him back to the Underworld. “Besides, there is no such thing as blue gold.”

“It pains me to say, but for a such young woman you are awfully arrogant, my dear.” The man chuckled, carefully pulling your arm and moving the sleeve upwards to show your skin. As you stilled, you suddenly saw black symbols similar to those on his chest appearing on your arm. “Your body is already my temple, darling. Resistance is futile. As I have told you, soon you will understand, but as of now you just have to trust me.”

As you watched his smile growing more sinister, you froze on the spot, knowing you won’t have another chance to escape.


End file.
